Emailing documents

Sales Scribe can email your business documents straight to your customers and suppliers, with the document attached as a PDF. This article covers how the send window works, how delivery happens in the background, and how to read the send status.

What you can email

• Sales invoices
• Quotes, estimates, and proforma invoices
• Credit notes
• Delivery notes
• Purchase orders (sent to your supplier)

Each is emailed from its own details page. Invoices, credit notes, delivery notes and purchase orders can also be emailed straight from their list pages — an envelope button appears on the row of any document that can be emailed, and opens the same send window.

Before you begin

• The document must have been issued or sent first. You cannot email a draft — for an invoice you will see "Draft invoices cannot be emailed. Issue the invoice first, then send it." A voided invoice cannot be emailed either.
• The recipient needs an email address — on a contact person or on the customer or supplier record itself. If none exists anywhere, the send window tells you to add one first.

Sending a document

1. Open the document's details page and select the Send option (for example, Send Email). For invoices, credit notes, delivery notes and purchase orders you can instead select the envelope button on the document's row in the list.
2. The send window opens. Check the recipient, subject, and message, then send.

How the recipient is suggested

Every send window pre-fills the To field the same way: the first contact person holding that document type's recipient role (for example Invoice recipient or Purchase-order recipient — see customer contacts and supplier contacts); other holders of the same role are suggested as CC. If nobody holds the role, the primary contact is suggested, and failing that the account email on the customer or supplier record. The suggestion is just a starting point — the To and CC fields are drop-down lists of the party's contact people (showing each person's name, address and roles), and you can also type any other address directly into them.

The send window differs a little by document type:

For invoices, you can edit:

• To — the suggested recipient; change it freely.
• CC — optional, comma-separated addresses. Put your own address here to keep a copy.
• Subject — pre-filled; edit if you wish.
• Message — a message included in the email.

For quotes, estimates, and proforma invoices, the Recipient email is pre-filled with the suggestion (leaving it blank also uses the suggestion), with an optional CC field; or tick Mark as sent without emailing to record it as sent without emailing, then select Confirm Send. For quotes and estimates you can also select Copy link to copy their online link and share it yourself.

For credit notes, delivery notes, and purchase orders, the window shows an editable To and CC, a Subject, an optional Custom Message, and a Send me a copy tick box that CCs the email to your own address.

[Screenshot required: Send Email window for an invoice showing To, CC, Subject and Message fields]

Delivery happens in the background

When you send, the email is not delivered on the spot — it is placed in a queue (an outbox) and sent by Sales Scribe a few seconds later. The window tells you "The email will be queued for sending. It will be sent within N seconds," and you get an on-screen confirmation that it was queued. You can carry on working while it goes out.

The send status

Each document shows an Email Status once you have tried to send it. The badge tells you where the email is:

stateDiagram-v2
    [*] --> Pending
    Pending --> Sending
    Sending --> Sent
    Sending --> Failed
    Failed --> Sending: automatic retry (up to 3)
    Sent --> [*]

Once an email has Sent, or has Failed after its final attempt, a Resend Email button appears so you can queue a fresh copy.

What happens next

• The recipient gets your email with the document attached as a PDF.
• Invoices and quotes/estimates also include a link to view the document online. See What your customer sees.
• Emailing a document is a communication step only — it does not change any accounting figures.

Marking a quote as sent without emailing

When you send a quote, estimate, or proforma, you can choose to record it as Sent without actually emailing it — useful if you have already shared it another way. Emailing it does both: it marks the document as sent and delivers the email.

Troubleshooting

• "…has no email address configured." — add an email address to the customer or supplier, then try again.
• The status shows Failed — Sales Scribe retries automatically up to three times. If it still fails, check the recipient address is correct, then use Resend Email.
• You cannot find a Send option — the document is probably still a draft. Issue or send it first.

Related guides

• What your customer sees
• Online payment availability
• Invoice design and branding
• Quotes, estimates and proforma explained